ExxonMobil and Chevron made a combined $26.5 billion in the second quarter after producing more oil, refining more fuel, and selling all of it into a market scrambled by war.
Washington is investigating why gasoline costs so much.
Chevron reported record net income of $12.2 billion, nearly five times its year-ago profit. Exxon earned $14.5 billion, double what it made during the same quarter last year and its best result since oil prices soared following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Iran war sent crude prices sky high after Gulf production fell and tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz collapsed. It did worse things to gasoline and diesel markets, where Middle Eastern refinery outages piled onto lost Russian capacity and China’s reluctance to export more fuel.
Chevron’s refining profit jumped to $4.9 billion from $737 million a year earlier. Exxon’s refining business earned $5.5 billion after losing $1.3 billion in the first quarter.
Exxon CFO Neil Hansen said the bigger price problem is no longer crude. It is the shrinking availability of the products made from it.
Chevron’s global production reached 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, helped by its Hess acquisition, while U.S. output hit a record 2 million bpd. Exxon produced 4.5 million bpd, with Permian output also reaching a record. Their refineries ran close to capacity.
President Donald Trump still wants gasoline at $2.25 per gallon. The national average is $4.11.
There is a small hitch with that comparison: gasoline last averaged $2.25 during the pandemic, when Americans stopped driving and oil demand collapsed. Recreating that price may prove difficult.
Trump has ordered a Justice Department investigation into alleged price gouging, and an export ban is no longer being dismissed entirely. Chevron warned that restricting exports would discourage investment and eventually leave the market with less supply.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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